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That process, which is regulated by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, is under way in several local areas, said Charles Ruth, a biologist who manages the state Deer & Turkey Project.

Communities that have been issued deer-culling permits, which are in effect from Sept. 15 to March 1, include: Hilton Head Plantation, Sea Pines Plantation, Long Cove Club, Colleton River Plantation, Palmetto Bluff, Palmetto Hall, Indigo Run, Berkeley Hall, Haig Point and Moss Creek.

"Most of what we call urban/suburban deer management that is going on in South Carolina is in Beaufort County and most of that is on or just off of Hilton Head Island," Ruth said. "It's nearly exclusively a Beaufort County issue."

Deer culling began at Sea Pines Plantation more than a decade ago following extensive litigation between the property owners' organization and animal protection advocates. State courts held in favor of deer population control by private communities.

"Since then we developed urban deer management guidelines, which we provide to communities. If they can provide a management plan they can formally request action on our part in issuing a permit," Ruth said.

"Over the 12 or 14 years the program has been in effect there have been about 20 communities involved," he said.

"Not all communities remove deer every year," he said. "In monitoring the program, typically in the first year and sometimes the second year you have to remove a large number of animals to get the population under control. Then they remove a small number every year or every other year."

Most communities now have "full-blown" deer management plans; "our role is, to a large degree, advice and consent," Ruth said.

Jay Walea, forestry and wildlife manager at Palmetto Bluff, said culling deer is essential to keep the general population healthy.

"Preservation doesn't work; conservation is the way to go," he said. "Mother Nature is a wonderful thing but she can be cruel."

Walea, who has been at Palmetto Bluff for more than 20 years, said man is responsible for the overabundance of deer.

"Whitetail deer don't really have any limiting factor and it's man's fault, we took out all the apex predators" such as panthers, bears and wolves, he said. "The only limiting factors now are starvation and disease."

Through ownership by Union Camp, International Paper and now Crescent Resources, the deer population on the more than 20,000 acres at Palmetto Bluff has been closely managed for 25 years, according to Walea.

"We keep our deer population at or just under the carrying capacity of the environment. We want a healthy herd," he said.

"The majority of our harvest is adult does because they're responsible for reproducing. When you knock the doe-to-buck ratio down… it ensures that our biggest, best, most genetically suitable deer are doing the breeding and not throwing bad genetics into your herd," Walea said.

"The way we go about is to consider a variety of factors from a spotlight survey" in which deer are counted at night with the aid of a high-powered light, he said.

Those factors include population density, previous harvest numbers, weight and age. "That's where we get our number from, which is normally anywhere from 100 to 165 deer a year. Do we get that quota? Absolutely not. We get as close as we can and so far that's been really good," he said. "We're sustaining a wonderful habitat base."

Last year Palmetto Bluff had a permit to cull 100 deer and 64 were removed. The permit number this year is the same "but we're way below that for the moment," Walea said.

"When you get into urban or suburban resort settings and deer are not exposed to recreational hunting, populations are unnaturally high," Ruth said.

Developers or property owners associations or management companies are required to conduct a deer census, which is provided to the state along with a formal request for a culling permit; then the community representatives coordinate with their contractor, he said.

"Once they get the permit, it's under their control," he said.

Randy Conley, chief of security at Moss Creek, said the community has a permit to remove 20 deer and has hired a contractor.

Ruth said the inevitable controversy over deer culling has receded, but still he's reluctant to talk about it.

"It's a much more moderate situation in your area right now. There were just over 300 deer (total) culled last year where in the early years there might have been that many on one resort," Ruth said.

"They get in what they call 'maintenance mode' where they take 40 or so animals on 5,000 acres at Sea Pines whereas there were 300 taken in that first year," he said.

Last year, according to Ruth, Moss Creek received a permit to cull 30 deer and removed 15 while Colleton River removed 51 on permit for 75; other communities removed the permitted number: 50 at Hilton Head Plantation, 40 at Sea Pines, 15 at Long Cove/Wexford, 35 at Palmetto Hall, 75 at Belfair, 30 at Berkeley Hall and 50 at Callawassie Island.

This year, "it may be April or May before we hear from everybody," Ruth said.

Communities are required to pay for processing the meat from culled deer, which is donated to a charitable organization, he said.

Compared to the few hundred deer culled annually, about 225,000 deer are harvested through recreational hunting in South Carolina each year, according to Ruth.

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